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Stressing out: changes in the brain and across the population

Stress in adolescence may lead to brain changes that can impact higher cognitive functions, according to a paper released earlier this month. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that planning, information recall, and working memory can be particularly impacted by shrinking in frontal brain areas.

In children aged 10 to 14, negative life events were associated with reduced gray and white matter -- the brain cells and the network of fibers that connect these cells. The same children with a history of high stress also showed poorer performance in working memory tasks that involved finding and remembering the locations of tokens in boxes.

The study demonstrated that deficits in the memory task were linked to cumulative stress, not just recent negative events; puberty also was not the underlying cause of working memory difficulties. While it’s not clear if these brain changes are permanent, the researchers think that the brains of these young study subjects may still be capable of remodeling. Understanding how children process stressors, and taking more MRI brain scans over a period of time, could lead to interventions to help the brain bounce back after a crisis. The UW-Madison team's work was reported in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Women, the unemployed, and those with lower levels of education reported more stress, while aging brought calm, with retirees reporting low levels of stress. Though minorities reported more stress than whites, this difference was no longer significant after adjustments were made for other demographic factors. The study’s authors concluded that women, young people, and those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged are at a greater risk of stress-related conditions like heart disease or asthma.

Interestingly, only one group experienced increased stress levels during the recent recession: white, middle-aged men with college educations and full-time jobs. This group may feel vulnerable to job and savings loss, leading to high levels of stress.